144 online
 
Most Popular Choices
Share on Facebook 60 Printer Friendly Page More Sharing Summarizing
OpEdNews Op Eds    H2'ed 7/27/14

Deconstructing the Zionist View of Gaza's Horror

By       (Page 1 of 2 pages)   27 comments

Lawrence Davidson
Message Lawrence Davidson
Become a Fan
  (16 fans)

Cross-posted from To The Point Analyses

Free Gaza Art Festival
Free Gaza Art Festival
(Image by Greer Valley)
  Details   DMCA
>

Part I -- David Harris and the American Jewish Congress

For reasons unknown I have ended up on the list-serve of the American Jewish Congress. This means I receive messages sent out by its executive director, David Harris. Sometimes I even read them.

On 18 July 2014 I got just such a missive explaining that "too many in the international community fail to grasp the stark realities" Israel faces and its "severely limited policy options." To set everyone straight Harris wrote an op-ed in the Boston Globe (also dated 18 July), a copy of which came along with his mailing.

Since the horror in Gaza continues unabated and Harris's letter can be taken as representative of the American Zionist point of view, I decided that it was appropriate for me to deconstruct his op-ed for my own blog and list-serve. One should note that a similar contesting of Israeli rationalizations, dealing with somewhat different points, appears in a 25 July 2014 online article, entitled "Five Israeli Talking Points on Gaza -- Debunked," from the Nation magazine.

Before looking at the op-ed we should note that Mr. Harris lives in a very tightly defined world. It is a world defined by a set of unquestioned assumptions which are prescribed by a thoroughly assimilated ideology. That ideology is, of course Zionism, the a priori assumption of which is the right of Israel to exist as a Zionist state, that is, an exclusively Jewish state.

Unfortunately, there are many negative consequences coming from this assumption and one major one is this: you cannot create a state for one group alone in the midst of a large population of other, non-group people, without creating a discriminatory environment. Statehood requires the institutionalizing of that environment through laws that create superior and inferior populations based on who is or is not in the favored group that the state is designed to serve. This will almost inevitably lead to segregation, extreme economic disparities and, quite possibly, ethnic cleansing.

This is exactly the result of putting the claim of Israel's right to exist as a Zionist state into practice. The flip-side of this process is a piece of reality (not another assumption) that is nonetheless not allowed for in Mr. Harris's world, and that is the discriminated population's legitimate right to resist.

Part II -- David Harris's Op-Ed

Here are the main points put forth in the Boston Globe Op-ed:

A) Harris starts by laying all blame for the ongoing death and destruction in Gaza on Hamas. He calls the present round of fighting, "the latest Hamas-triggered war." Is this accurate? Actually the accusation is based on the unsubstantiated assertion of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu that Hamas ordered the kidnapping and murder of three teenagers from an illegal settlement in June. This event was the trigger -- the foreground context -- for the present confrontation. No independent credible evidence has been offered for Netanyahu's accusation. Nonetheless, what followed was widespread arrests on the West Bank by Israel, carried out in a near-random fashion, as well as increased pressure on Gaza. Hamas responded to both these actions with renewed rocket attacks. The confrontation escalated from there.

The background to all of this is also worth noting. It was put best by the astute and honest Jewish critic, M. J. Rosenberg. While condemning the rocket attacks from Gaza, he notes that "It is Israel which has kept Gaza under blockade since 2006 when it decided it would not accept the result of a free and fair election that put Hamas in power. A blockade is an act of war and Israel has, by that definition, been at war with Gaza for almost a decade, a war it waged through its incessant punishment of innocent civilians. Did Netanyahu think Hamas would simply accept that forever?" None of these facts are mentioned in Mr. Harris's op-ed.

B) Harris goes on to lament that "the hope for an early end [to the present fighting] was dashed when an Egyptian-brokered cease-fire proposal was accepted by Israel, but was met by Hamas by a barrage of rockets aimed at the Jewish state." How accurate is this? It certainly is not the whole story. The military dictatorship that now passes for a government in Egypt is an ally of Israel. What was put forth as a ceasefire offer was a plan conjured up by Egypt in consultation with Israel, and possibly the U.S., and then presented to Hamas as a take-it-or-leave-it affair. Hamas was never consulted, nor were there any benefits for Hamas and the people of Gaza in the offer other than a temporary halt in the slaughter being carried out by Israel. Here is what the renowned Amira Hass, one of the few objective Israeli reporters, put it: "the offer "is not meant to bring progress and change to the people of Gaza, but to marginalize them [Hamas] as a political movement."

Hamas itself had offered a ceasefire plan on July 14. It offered a 10-year truce in exchange for the lifting of the eight-year-old blockade -- the one that constitutes an Israeli act of war and has turned Gaza into a huge open-air prison. Again, this ceasefire offer was not mentioned by Mr. Harris in his op-ed even though he must certainly be aware of it. Nor did the Western media that covered the one-sided Egyptian ceasefire offer pay much attention to the Hamas proposal, even though it would have given Israel a long-term respite from rocket attacks. Nor did anyone seem to remember that Hamas had made a similar offer back in 2008. Both then and now the Hamas offers were, to borrow words from Mr. Harris, "met by a barrage of rockets" fired from Israeli jets and tanks.

C) Harris asserts that the present "reality" leads Israeli leaders to conclude that what they face in Gaza is "an adversary determined to at all costs to wage war, won't change its outlook, [and] seeks to maximize murder and mayhem, and that this adversary must therefore be answered with a strong, unambiguous response." This is a rather bizarre assertion. From the Palestinian perspective (to which Mr. Harris will give no credence), this is an exact description of Israeli attitudes and policies. Could Mr. Harris be projecting the behavior of those he champions onto those he despises?

D) Mr. Harris goes on: "It is important to remember that it [the present 'murder and mayhem'] did not have to be this way." What does he mean? He proceeds to lay out a "what might have been" story that goes as follows: "In 2005 Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon unilaterally withdrew all settlers and soldiers from Gaza, giving this narrow strip of land its first chance in history ... to exercise sovereignty. That could have become the springboard for a new start, perhaps the beginning of a Singapore on the Mediterranean. But within two years Hamas ... seized power. Rather than Gaza's construction, the goal became Israel's destruction."

Next Page  1  |  2

(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).

Must Read 3   Well Said 2   Supported 2  
Rate It | View Ratings

Lawrence Davidson Social Media Pages: Facebook page url on login Profile not filled in       Twitter page url on login Profile not filled in       Linkedin page url on login Profile not filled in       Instagram page url on login Profile not filled in

Lawrence Davidson is a history professor at West Chester University in Pennsylvania. He is the author of Foreign
Policy Inc.: Privatizing America's National Interest
; America's
Palestine: Popular and Offical Perceptions from Balfour to Israeli
Statehood
; and Islamic Fundamentalism. His academic work is focused on the history of American foreign relations with the Middle East. He also teaches courses in the history of science and modern European intellectual history.

His blog To The Point Analyses now has its own Facebook page. Along with the analyses, the Facebook page will also have reviews, pictures, and other analogous material.

Go To Commenting
The views expressed herein are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this website or its editors.
Writers Guidelines

 
Contact AuthorContact Author Contact EditorContact Editor Author PageView Authors' Articles
Support OpEdNews

OpEdNews depends upon can't survive without your help.

If you value this article and the work of OpEdNews, please either Donate or Purchase a premium membership.

STAY IN THE KNOW
If you've enjoyed this, sign up for our daily or weekly newsletter to get lots of great progressive content.
Daily Weekly     OpEd News Newsletter
Name
Email
   (Opens new browser window)
 

Most Popular Articles by this Author:     (View All Most Popular Articles by this Author)

Where Is Joe Biden?

Nationalism vs. Capitalism: Guess Which One Wins?

Domestic Terrorism American Style -- An Analysis

Who is Right in Syria?

Australia and the Fight for Justice in Palestine

More On Savage Israel -- An Analysis

To View Comments or Join the Conversation:

Tell A Friend